Sound Tigers preach tolerance at 'You Can Play' day

Published 12:26 am, Tuesday, March 4, 2014

BRIDGEPORT -- When Dan Woog was young, there weren't public role models who were gay. He said he'd toss homophobic language around, though he knew he was gay himself, his way of coping through a tough time.

The world has changed; Woog has been out for 20 years, and the Bridgeport Sound Tigers held their second-annual "You Can Play day" Sunday to support tolerance for gay athletes.

"It speaks to so many good things, to the Sound Tigers really being a part of every community," said Woog, boys soccer coach at Staples High and a writer and speaker on LBGT issues.

"I thought it was a really diverse audience with some really great perspectives."

The message is tolerance, keeping homophobic language and attitudes out of the locker room and off the fields of play.

For the second year in a row, about 70 people attended Sunday's pregame panel discussion, which also included Anthony Nicodemo, boys basketball coach at Saunders High in Yonkers, N.Y.; David Farber, a former hockey player at Penn; and Avery Stone, a senior women's hockey player at Amherst.

They shared their experiences, like Farber's first day in the Penn dressing room as an openly gay player, marked with awkward silence. The next day a friend on the team made a joke that broke the ice.

"If you're not being made fun of in a hockey locker room, something's terribly wrong," Farber said. "Like Dan, I underestimated my teammates and their ability to change."

The You Can Play Project sprang in part from hockey, honoring Brendan Burke, son of longtime NHL executive Brian. Brendan, who died in a car accident four years ago, opened up about his homosexuality and received support from Miami (Ohio), where he was the hockey team's student manager.

The program has grown and received support from around pro and amateur sports; the Sound Tigers were the first pro hockey team to host such an event last year. Since then, the NBA has its first openly gay player in the Brooklyn Nets' Jason Collins, and Missouri's Michael Sam could be the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL.

"Jason Collins started a conversation. My kids could relate to Jason Collins. They couldn't relate to (skater) Johnny Weir," Nicodemo said. "The same thing with Michael Sam. Football kids can relate to Michael Sam."

One of YCP's principles is that a player who's open about who she is can be a player more focused on playing the game.

"Always, as a player, I looked over my shoulder," Stone said. "Keeping a secret like that holds you back on the ice."

A tolerant athletic environment can help straight players, too, Woog said: They may grow up to have a gay teammate, or a lesbian boss, or a transgender child.

"If you don't learn that stuff when you're young from the right people, people modeling it," Woog said, "you're going to have a tough life."